Nostalgia
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: Milt reminisces; Mark does the heavy lifting.


Disclaimer: They're not my characters; I make no profit from them. There is no place called Paupao, though the geography, tactics, and casualty rates described herein reflect those of an actual WWII island campaign.

Rated: PG

Author's Notes: It was only after I started writing this that I found out that nostalgia originally meant a particularly malignant form of combat fatigue, a longing to be home that was so strong, that men would lose interest in their own safety and would take insanely dangerous risks. In the American Civil War, 'nostalgia' was sometimes listed as a cause of death.

Thank you, Cheri; it really was half-baked when first I sent it to you.

**Nostalgia**

By L. M. Lewis

"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little,

and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick,

at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful." Buddha

His first thought was, _My God, he looks old. _And close upon the heels of that, _I wonder if I look as old to him as he looks to me?_ But what he said was, "Jake, it's been a while, hasn't it? What's up?"

And Jake Beckman tried to smile back as he ushered his invited guest into his front hallway. "Milt, I'm so glad you could come by on such short notice."

Beckman pivoted on his good foot and led Hardcastle into the living room. There was nothing new in the limp, he'd lost his right leg over forty years ago. But the weary hunch of the man's shoulders, and the unrelenting worry in his eyes, those hadn't been there the last time they'd gotten together.

"Milt, it's about David. I don't know what to do. I've tried the State Department; I've contacted damn near everybody I could think of. All they can tell me is, 'We'll look into it.'"

Now it was Hardcastle's turn to look worried. "You said he was in Paupao on business?"

"Yes, doing research for a resort development consortium."

"On Paupao?" The judge asked skeptically.

Beckman nodded. "You wouldn't believe it; he showed me pictures before he left. It's the most damned beautiful place."

Hardcastle frowned, trying to reconcile that notion with his own memories of four decades past. Then Beckman's voice broke in on that thought.

"But he never made it onto the flight he was supposed to take home. That was two days ago. And the fellow who was renting him a house says he hasn't been back there, either. Milt, I'm scared."

"Any idea what might have happened?"

"The liaison there--Paupao isn't big enough to rate an embassy-- his name is Troutmann; he asked me if maybe David was doing any diving, looking at the reefs. He thinks Davey might have gone out alone and gotten into trouble. I'm telling you, Milt, you know my son, he's not like that. Hell, he told me how treacherous some of the currents are south of the island, how a man could get swept out into the Pacific with no way back. He wouldn't take a chance like that."

Beckman's anxious patter slowed; he looked up at his old friend. "I need somebody to _go_ there--to find out what's happened. Damn it all, if I could go _myself _. . ." Beckman was looking down shaking his head angrily. "A man shouldn't have to live long enough to be useless."

Hardcastle nodded his understanding. He knew the leg was only the most visible of his friend's medical problems. He also knew the burning need the man was expressing. _What happened? How and when and where? _Along with the dread that came with maybe finding the answers.

He suspected his friend wanted nothing more than a referral, a suggestion of someone reliable who could be hired. Instead he said, "I can go take a look for you, Jake." Beckman's lifted his head, his eyes full of doubt and surprise. "Aw, come on, I've still got two good legs and there's nothing wrong with my ticker. Besides, you know I got a guy who helps me out, about your son's age; he can do the heavy lifting, if there is any."

00000

McCormick tilted the last of the fifty-pound bags of fertilizer off his shoulder and onto the stack he'd made on the edge of the lawn nearest the flower beds. Seven bags of high-grade cow-dung neatly stacked in a pyramid, awaiting distribution among the eternally demanding Hardcastle roses. He found himself thinking (just thinking, he would never have said it out loud) if only Nancy, God rest her soul, had taken up a less physically demanding hobby, like needlepoint.

He dug in his pocket for the box cutter and reached down to open the first bag.

"McCormick!" He heard Hardcastle's shout before he saw him stride into view around the side of the house. "Why the hell didn't you answer the phone? I've been trying to call since--"

"Sorry, Judge, I didn't hear." McCormick made a sweeping gesture towards the bags. "I was one with the manure; it's a Zen thing. What's up?"

"Well, you better stop the meditating and get packed; we have a plane to catch," the judge said impatiently.

McCormick's eyebrows when up. "Pack what? Plane to where? Are we talking about a month in Oregon here?"

"Nope, sunny, warm, beaches."

"Gunrunners? Banana Republics? San Rio Blanco?"

"Nothing like that. We're looking for a guy, David Beckman; he's the son of an old friend of mine. He went missing on a business trip."

"Where?"

"Paupao. It's an island in the South Pacific," Hardcastle added, seeing that McCormick was drawing a blank. "And you're going to be," he made a dubious face, "a journalist, a guy who's writing a book about the place. You got anything that looks like what somebody from National Geographic would wear?"

"Wait a minute, Kemosabe," McCormick was grinning. "Why don't you be the journalist, and I'll be the guy who carries your pencils."

"Nope, can't; you're the journalist, and I'm gonna be the guy who's showing you around." Hardcastle was already turning away to go back up to the house, leaving McCormick standing there with a questioning look. "Now you better hustle," the judge added as he walked away. "Our flight leaves in three hours. And take a shower; that 'one with the manure' doesn't work so good on a plane."

00000

They were two hours southwest of Honolulu and nine hours into what was shaping up to be a very long night. McCormick fidgeted again, trying to find a more comfortable position for his legs. He cast a sideward envious glance at the judge, who'd managed to fall asleep even before the stop-over, and had barely woken up during their refueling. Granted, the man had had a busy day, McCormick conceded. He'd managed to accumulate a hefty file on both David Beckman and their destination, as well as clearing a whole series of bureaucratic obstacles to last-minute international travel.

"See," the judge had explained, as they were in the taxi to LAX, "it's a little island, maybe 20,000 people, an ex-American protectorate, been independent for a few years now. They've got a president and everything."

"20,000? That wouldn't even rate a mayor back in Jersey," McCormick observed. "So what do you think happened to this guy?"

"Dunno," Hardcastle's eye narrowed, as if he were pondering the possibilities and none of them were good. "I know this kid. He's smart and responsible. I don't think he'd just wander off with some girl he met and forget to call home. Besides, the fellow he was renting a house from, his name's Rapoa, told his dad that David had left his suitcases the day he was supposed to fly out. He said he had a couple errands to run; then he never came back to pick them up."

"Only 20,000 people, how much crime can there be?"

"Well, the last president was assassinated, but I don't know why anybody there would go after an American."

McCormick's eyebrows had risen a notch. "Robbery?"

"Jake showed me pictures; David's been at this a long time. He dresses like a young guy doing island-hopping on the cheap. He doesn't want the competition to know he's scouting property."

McCormick nodded, leaning forward a bit to study the photo the judge had pulled out of the file—a guy with sandy hair, thinning toward the front, with an otherwise youthful face. He was smiling and tan and dressed more like a beach bum than a businessman.

He had an odd feeling that he'd seen that face before, in a younger version, on a photo he'd run across while sorting out things in the garage. That had been an unframed snapshot of two middle-aged men and two boys, both about 14, posing with a pile of camping gear in the drive at Gull's Way, obviously the start of a trip, everyone looking happy. Mark had only looked at the photo for a few moments and then he'd mostly concentrated on the image of Hardcastle's own son, a kid with a cock-eyed smile and short bristly hair.

_Morbid curiosity,_ he'd shoved the photo under a book, back in the bottom of the box from which it'd come. Then he'd beat down a thought of where he'dbeen when he was that age. _Is there a word that means the opposite of nostalgia?_ If there was, he couldn't think of it.

Now he thought, as the plane headed west through the endless night,_ one of them is dead, and maybe the other one, too._

00000

Past Guam there'd been two more legs, on ever-smaller planes, the last one an eight-seater in which room had been made for a crate containing four squealing piglets. McCormick was bone-weary of flying by then, but managed a joke about flying pigs.

Eventually he saw a speck of green, forward from the left-hand window, that gradually resolved itself into knobbled mounds of dense treetops, fringed in spots by white sand, in others by chalk-white cliffs, and sitting in an ocean of variegated blue, from azure to pale turquoise. The plane banked left; the whole thing spread out beneath them in ever-increasing detail, until he could even make out schools of fish just below the surface in the shallow water.

"My God," the soft exclamation had come from just over his right shoulder. When he turned his head, he saw the judge, staring down past him at the view with a look of absolute astonishment. "He's right; it _is_ damnbeautiful."

"Hard to believe anybody could be killed there," McCormick replied quietly.

"No," the judge shook his head slowly, "it's not."

00000

They trundled their own bags across the tarmac and into the tin-roofed building that sufficed for customs. McCormick lifted them onto the table. The bored looking officer in sweat-stained khakis took a desultory look inside, until he reached the nylon backpack—maps, a compass, flashlights, and a handful of cold light sticks, canteens, and a first-aid kit.

"You are going over to the caves?" the man inquired politely, addressing himself to Hardcastle, who nodded back in reply. "You should get a guide; I have a cousin--"

"I think I'll remember my way around," the judge answered.

"Of course." The customs officer smiled. "But you know, forty years--"

"Like yesterday."

"Yes." The officer made a little waggling gesture with one finger. "So you think. Then maybe you find some trees are not where you left them and the next thing you know, you are up to your knee in one of those holes and then you are flying home with a cast on."

Hardcastle laughed. "I'll watch my step, just like I did last time."

"Well, here is his card, just in case." He handed it over and then waved at McCormick to close up the bags.

00000

Finding Rapoa proved easy. The driver of the ancient jitney, which was parked at the airport for the occasional arrivals, took them to a two-story weathered wood building near the outskirts of the town. Rapoa was on the veranda, looking every bit the island entrepreneur in a loose cotton shirt, and light pants. He nodded at their approach, glancing at their luggage and clothing without obviously assessing their means.

"Looking for a beach house, gentlemen?" he began expansively.

"Something not too far from town," Hardcastle countered.

"You have come to the right man," Rapoa's smile was shark-like. "I just happen to have a place opened up."

Hardcastle did a moderate amount of negotiating, just for show. He took the place on approval and Rapoa offered to drive them over in a slightly less-ancient vehicle. Once during the drive, the judge had tried to gently turn the conversation to previous visitors, but Rapoa was either oblivious or not biting.

He deposited them on the beach in front of a thatched structure right out of a Joseph Conrad novel. Hardcastle took a perfunctory look inside and paid for the week.

Rapoa took the money and was off.

"What'd ya think?" Hardcastle gestured after the departing figure as McCormick carried the bags inside.

"Him? Huh, I've had landlords like that. They just want to make sure they're away before you discover how bad the cockroaches are. I don't think he's burying people in the back yard. It wouldn't be good for business." McCormick deposited the bags just inside the door and took a look around. "Not so bad." He spotted the camp lantern hanging over the table in the main room, "Quaint." He looked through the doorway into the back room--two ancient iron bedsteads; above each hung a canopy of netting. McCormick raised one eyebrow and glanced at the judge.

"Mosquito bar, I hope it's in better condition than the rest of this place." The judge took the edge of one down and stretched it out to look for holes. "I'd forgotten about that. They'll eat you alive after dark."

McCormick grinned. "But you do remember where all the caves are?"

"Hell, no, there were hundreds of them." The judge shrugged. "I just know we don't want a guide along, maybe coming back and talking to someone who talks to someone."

"So what's the plan, Kemosabe?"

"Well, we look around here; see if he left anything behind that the cleaning lady didn't toss out. Then walk into town and have a look around, maybe drop by Troutmann's office, if he's there. Jake said he covers four or five islands. What's that?" McCormick had pulled something out of his bag.

"It's a notebook. I'm supposed to be from National Geographic, remember?"

Hardcastle made a face. "Not _from_ National Geographic, you're just supposed to look _like_ somebody from there. You're a free-lance writer. That way you can ask a lot of questions but nobody can ask to see your credentials, okay?"

"Gotcha. Plausible deniability." McCormick was already progressing smoothly through a search of the room.

The judge frowned. "You are _way_ too good at this, you know?"

00000

A half-hour later, having found nothing at the house except for a couple of hand-written receipts from local shops in an otherwise empty wastepaper basket, they were walking back up the road toward town.

"No rental cars?"

"You know this whole island isn't even half the size of Los Angeles."

McCormick frowned. "Bad example, Judge, _nobody_ walks in Los Angeles."

"I was wondering when you were going to start whining, kiddo."

"That was not whining; that was a point of information," McCormick protested. "You'll know when I start whining." _Which is not going to be anytime soon. _ He had a fairly good idea that the judge would be able to trump any complaints he made with a quick comparison to how things had been on his first visit here.

"Anyway," the judge explained, "about the furthest you can go here in a straight line is less than ten miles. From where we are now it's about six or seven down to the southern tip of the island; that's where the caves are, and the old Japanese military headquarters, or what's left of it."

They were passing by Rapoa's place again. McCormick's eyes turned to the right and stayed on it as they strolled by. Behind the main building was another, smaller structure, which looked like it was intended for storage.

"Where do you suppose he stowed Beckman's luggage? He didn't say anything about shipping it back, did he?" McCormick was practically looking over his shoulder now.

"Don't gawk." The judge gave him a sharp elbow to the ribs, "And don't start thinking about an international criminal career."

"Already got that; I broke you out of that jail in San Rio, didn't I? Too late for me." McCormick grinned.

"All right, at least try to keep it limited to the Western hemisphere. Let's see if we can do this with a little finesse this time."

They reached the outskirts of the town within another half mile. The street broadened out, here and there were structures, a mixed lot mostly, with corrugated iron roofing and broad verandas supported on wooden posts. There were patches of paint on the walls, but none that looked very new. They passed a few people, mostly islanders, reserved but polite, who looked at them as though it were nothing unusual to see a couple of strangers wander into town.

The street had taken a gentle downward slope and the buildings were closer together but still none taller than two stories. A couple of shops, one had mostly fishing supplies in the window, another more general, and then the road made a gentle curve and the harbor was visible.

Their route ended at a cross street that fronted on the water: two jetties, a dozen small boats, some sheds whose purpose could be construed from the strong smell of fish. The judge stood there, rocking back on his heels a little, looking it all up and down.

"Not very sinister," McCormick commented, doing his own looking. "Kind of sleepy. What kind of trouble could a guy get into here?" Then he shook his head, "On he other hand, look at Clarence."

Hardcastle made a face; his hometown was still a mildly sore subject for him. Aside from the fact that some of his old friends and neighbors had tried to kill him during his last visit, it seemed to bother him that McCormick appeared to be genuinely fond of the place.

He led McCormick up the street to a small clapboard building, with a faded coat of turquoise paint, and a sign that said 'Harbour Café'. Inside were a half-dozen small tables, mismatched, none occupied. The young woman behind the counter gave a nod. Hardcastle took one of the wire-back chairs at the table nearest the front window. "Two Cokes."

McCormick sat opposite, putting his notebook conspicuously on the table in front of him. The woman brought the drinks, two small glass bottles, sweating cold, but no glasses. "Two dollars," the woman smiled politely. Hardcastle handed over the money and she went back to tidying up behind the counter.

"Handy, them taking American currency," McCormick commented.

The judge was looking past him, up at the menu signboard on the wall above the counter. "Oh, they take Australian . . . looks like yen, too."

McCormick looked over his shoulder, taking in the bilingual sign in a glance. He turned around again and shrugged, "Tourism. They must come back to see it, too."

The judge gave him an odd look and then said quietly, "We only took about two hundred prisoners, and most of them were laborers from Okinawa."

"Two hundred?" McCormick looked puzzled, "Out of how many?"

"Oh," Hardcastle was looking out the window now, down toward the harbor, "they had maybe ten thousand guys holed up in those caves; not sure we ever got an _accurate_ count."

McCormick stared down at his bottle of Coke. The woman behind the counter said, "Monks." Both men looked up at her. "They come sometimes. Look for bones, skulls. Down there." She pointed vaguely south. "They do the ceremonies. It's good for the ghosts."

"Ah," Hardcastle said, "Any monks here right now?"

The woman cocked her head, thinking. "Last week, yes. Haven't heard if they left. Probably. They don't stay very long."

"Where do they stay when they're here?"

"Oh, sometimes in the town. Usually further south. Rapoa has some places to rent."

"Small island," McCormick smiled thoughtfully and took a swig of Coke.

00000

When they asked the directions to the American Consulate the woman laughed lightly and told them, "No _Consulate_, just a room on the second floor, third building down from here."

"Um, would Mr. Troutmann be in today?" Hardcastle asked.

The woman thought for a moment. "Tuesdays, I think, most weeks anyway."

McCormick frowned and turned to the judge, "What day is it? I've lost track."

Hardcastle frowned back, "We crossed the dateline; it's--"

"Friday, all day," the woman piped up.

00000

They walked up the stairs and knocked on the unprepossessing door that had Troutmann's name stenciled on it with the title, "American Liaison" underneath. No light on inside and no answer.

"Well, no wonder Jake hasn't heard anything back. This guy's barely here enough to keep his phone dusted off," Hardcastle said in disgust.

"Dunno, maybe he's out there talking up the locals and beating the bush, too."

"I don't think so. I think the lady in the café would have said something. From what I can see there isn't a lot going on here. A missing tourist and a worried American official would be something to talk about."

"What next, Kemosabe, the police? Find out what they know?"

Hardcastle shook his head. "Not yet. That'd make us _officially_ interested and so far nobody's talked to anyone who's officially interested. I think we should go find a bar, some place where people hang out, and see what the local rumors are saying."

00000

Two beers, two sandwiches, and an hour later, they were back on the street in front of the Black Pearl.

They had only primed the pump a little, by mentioning they'd been told the caves were dangerous. One of the locals laughed, said, yeah, a guy'd gone missing a few days earlier, but they'd searched the more popular sites and, anyway, most likely he'd tried a little solo diving and been swept out to sea. The general consensus was that time would tell. The body would show up or not, as God and the sea willed. They'd done their bit.

"What now?" McCormick tucked his notebook back under his arm looked up and down the street outside the bar.

"We buy some supplies and go back to the house. It'll be sunset in an hour or two and when it gets dark out here, it gets really dark."

00000

It got really dark.

McCormick had barely finished putting their purchases away when he had to light the lantern. Almost immediately the air over the table was filled with the flitting shapes of hundreds of insects. He looked over his shoulder. The judge had already fixed the mosquito netting in the bedroom; he'd gone out to the front porch and was sitting on the steps. McCormick grabbed the insect repellent they'd bought, hastily applied it, and then extinguished the light. He blinked a few times to accustom himself to the darkness and felt his way to the door.

He could hear the ocean but not see it, except as a void of blackness that reached up to almost eye level. Above that, "Oh, my God," he was staring up at the stars. "Where's the--"

"Southern cross? There," the judge was pointing nearly overhead and a little to the south. "Three bright ones, and one a little dimmer. Better than Seagull Beach, huh?"

"It's . . . _amazing_." McCormick looked down again. Now, with his dark adapted eyes, he could make out the edges of the breaking waves, tinseled by starlight alone. He edged back and sat down on the stoop alongside the judge, feeling a sudden twinge of guilt. They were here to find a man who might be dead. "What'll we do next?" he asked, still casting furtive glances up. He sensed, rather than saw, the judge shake his head.

"Dunno, maybe we should make it official, get a wire from Jake, get David's bags, talk to the authorities."

"Maybe," McCormick expressed his doubt in his inflection, "to get at the bags, but if the authorities had a clue, then we wouldn't have to be here." He heard the judge slap at an insect. "You know we've got insect repellent."

"I don't think the bugs were this bad the last time around. Well, maybe the flies," he added, after a bit. "Well fed."

McCormick sat for a moment, contemplating the stars, and the diet of flies. In the dark, there still wasn't enough light to make out more than the outline of the man sitting next to him; he thought he could risk a straight-out question.

"What was it like then?"

There was no immediate answer and, after a moment, McCormick thought he had wandered past one of those invisible 'Do Not Enter' signs that made life with Hardcastle so challenging. He was on the verge of apologizing for the question, when he felt the judge shift a little.

"Muddy," he said quietly. "Hot. And it stank to high heaven. It was better when the bodies were charred. They didn't bloat up then."

McCormick found himself staring fixedly at the Southern Cross, and not breathing.

"And the Marines never left one of their own behind."

McCormick turned his head slightly, "Marines? I thought you were Army."

"Yup. Sixth Army. But we had a pretty smart old colonel who knew we were going to have to take a couple more islands before we got to Japan, and he thought just maybe it would be a good idea to profit from what the Marines had learned on Bougainville. So I got attached to the 5th Marines as an observer."

McCormick smiled into the darkness. "Now why do I suspect that you did your observing with a grenade in one hand and an M-1 Garand in the other?"

"Well I didn't think I'd learn very much sitting back at regimental headquarters, listening to a bunch of staff guys saying how well everything was going."

"Of course not," McCormick sighed. "That would be too _easy_."

"So when I got to the staging island, I looked around for somebody who'd been there since the get-go--somebody who'd gotten through Bougainville, and Guadalcanal and Guam."

"Credentials, huh?"

"Yeah. Some guys thought it was just luck if you survived, but I always thought some people made their own luck."

McCormick nodded. He'd always thought the same thing.

"So that's how I found Beckman. He was a little younger than me, joined up before the war, in 1940, when he was eighteen. He told me everything he knew about banzai, night fighting, all that. But he said the Japanese weren't stupid, that they'd already lost a bunch of battles using counterthrusts and banzai, and the next island would be different."

"And you figured you'd better go along and find out?"

"That's about it. I was fresh out of Hawaii, jungle training, sure, but I'd never been in a real battle." Hardcastle paused. "I didn't have enough _imagination_."

There was a long silence. McCormick could see a faint brightening in the east. It was moonrise.

"So I got on the LST with Beckman's platoon."

The stars were becoming _simpler_. The three-quarter moon seemed intolerably bright.

"We saw the tail-end of the naval bombardment. I thought, 'My God, who could survive that?' It really was going to be a three day walkover, like all the higher-ups were saying." He could see the judge's face now, etched with memory. He was shaking his head slowly. "Beckman pointed out the hills. 'Caves,' he said. 'Can't bomb 'em out of caves.' If they were smart,--and they were _very_ smart--they'd have hunkered down. And we were going to have to go in after 'em."

The moon had lifted itself free of the ocean and sat just on the horizon, casting the outline of the long rollers. McCormick waited; it was light enough now to see the sand at their feet. The palms threw shadows backwards onto the porch. The judge had leaned forward and picked up a handful of sand, and was letting it run out between his fingers. The silence stretched out. Another handful.

"We were there for a month. We took five thousand casualties."

McCormick thought about ghosts and skulls. He opened his mouth and then shut it again, without saying what he had been thinking, but after another moment's silence he heard himself speak, "It doesn't seem _worth_ it. It's not even on the _way _to anything."

The judge frowned. "That's pretty much what they decided afterwards."

This time the silence stuck. The moon was turning silver and the chirring jungle noises settled in over the steady rush of the rollers.

"What'll we do tomorrow?" McCormick finally asked.

"Some more asking around, I expect, hope something shakes loose." Hardcastle pushed up off the stoop and turned halfway around, looking down. "Must be jetlag--I'm pooped. Going to bed."

"Yeah," McCormick feigned his own yawn. "Me too, in a minute."

He heard the shuffling noises and some softly muttered mild cussing while the netting got untangled. He sat a while longer, watching the moon continue to simplify things.

When the breathing from inside had steadied out to a low snore, he got up carefully and walked with slow light steps into the front room. He knew exactly where he had left his bag, already slightly open and away from the bedroom door. He reached in and took out what he needed. He lifted his jacket off the back of the chair and slipped it on; he wanted it for its pockets and its dark color. Then he slipped back out the door and found the trail leading to the road.

00000

"McCormick!"

Mark blinked and tried to place himself for a moment. Daylight. Strange bed. The usual angry shouting. "What?" he muttered, though he knew exactly what had provoked the man who was yelling at him from the other room.

Hardcastle was in the bedroom doorway now, huffing and grumbling, with the leather-bound book in one hand and a look of utter exasperation on his face. "I _told_ you we were gonna try and do this with a little finesse, and then you head out for the midnight B&E."

"'E', yes, no 'B'." McCormick sat up and pulled the netting loose on the near side of the bed. "Somebody else got there first, lock broken off. Don't blame _me_, I would have finessed it," he shrugged. "Dunno if they were after something in particular or just rummaging for valuables. They left _that_ in one of the side pockets of his smaller bag-- journal, notes. Take a look at the last couple of entries."

The judge was already fanning the book open. McCormick smiled to himself as he climbed out of bed. Mad, yeah, but never, not once, had the judge refused to look at what was brought to him.

"Oh, and there was this." He scrabbled through the side pocket of his jacket, back hanging on the chair, and fished out the film canister. "It was in the same compartment." He placed it on the table where Hardcastle now sat, pouring over the contents of the journal. The judge had already read the later entries; he was paging back and reading more.

McCormick had done the same thing by flashlight not too many hours ago. He yawned, scratched at a few bug bites, and tried to remember on which shelf he'd put the instant coffee. He gave the judge a few minutes to read as he puttered around pulling out the things that most resembled breakfast, from what they'd bought the day before.

The judge looked up from his reading, popped open the film canister and tipped the contents into his palm.

"Undeveloped," McCormick nodded, "and only one. How long did his dad say he was here before he went missing?"

"Almost two weeks."

"That doesn't seem like much film for that long. I didn't find any pictures. Maybe he was having the rest developed."

"If they were pictures of potential resort sites," the judge objected, "he wouldn't want that information to get out. He'd bring that film home and develop it there."

"Then maybe that's what somebody broke in after. They just overlooked one roll." McCormick sat down across from him. "And it looks like he spent a lot of time down by the caves." McCormick reached across and tapped the open page with his finger. "He was looking for the place where his dad almost died."

"Why?" Hardcastle said with an edge of irritation to his voice.

"Dunno," McCormick shrugged. "Morbid curiosity. People get that. Maybe he'd heard the story so many times he just wanted to see for himself. You can ask him when we find him." He was watching the judge closely. There was no response, only a turning of the page and a slow shake of the head. "You think he's dead, huh?" McCormick sat back in his chair. "You've thought that ever since we got here, maybe before. You think we're looking for a body, and you're not real eager to find it."

There was no immediate denial.

"Fine, maybe he is. But I didn't come out here just to be part of some graves detail, and if there's the slightest chance he is still alive, then we're running out of time."

"He already _has_ run out of time," Hardcastle said, low and insistent. His eyes stayed down, directed at the open page of the journal. "Injured men didn't last a day out there without help."

McCormick sighed. "Okay. You're the expert. But dead or not we came here to find him. His dad wants to know. He _needs_ to know. Do you think it's better to have him be MIA?"

Hardcastle shot him a sharp glance and looked like he was about to say something, then halted himself. After a moment's pause, he conceded, "All right. Yeah. He was looking for_ that_ place. That's where we should look for him."

"You think you can find it?" McCormick prodded.

"Sure . . . I think."

"Oh, great." It was McCormick's turn to shake his head. Then he added, "You're not going to make me walk there, are you? I am _not_ infantry."

00000

Rapoa was sitting on his veranda when they walked up, as though there were nothing out of the ordinary. McCormick had the pack, blanket rolls tied underneath. He made a point of not glancing over at the storage building to see if the lock had been replaced.

Hardcastle smiled politely and asked if there was anyplace on the island that did photo developing. Rapoa smiled back, equally politely, and said 'no'; film was flown out to Guam. Hardcastle nodded. He inquired about vehicles for rent. Again Rapoa made another polite, apologetic negative, but said a car and driver could be arranged. He whistled a man out of the house and tossed him the keys.

So they found themselves in the back seat of an ancient Land Rover, venerable in years though relatively light on mileage. Their driver was a young and cheerful local who Rapoa had addressed as 'Jim' and referred to as 'my nephew'. Hardcastle didn't give directions until they'd come to a split in the road a mile south of Rapoa's place.

"The middle road, between the ridges," he said.

Jimmy kept his smile in place as he slowed to a crawl. "You want the west beach road, sir. It goes all the way down to the landing areas, puts you close to the caves. Nice little walk, very pretty.

"The middle road," Hardcastle insisted calmly.

Jimmy shrugged and accelerated. "Ends up three maybe four miles from the coast. Heavy walking."

The green swathed hills had already closed in on either side of the vehicle and the road had become little more than a two-rut trail. McCormick reached into his pack and took out his notebook and pen. The fronds of the lower bushes swacked into the side of the Rover as they crept along. After a few miles the space opened up a little more. The judge was peering up as though he were taking his bearings.

"Recognize anything?" McCormick asked hopefully.

"That set there," Hardcastle pointed up and forward towards the nobbley outline of the ridge. "Looks familiar. I think we called it Smokey Ridge."

Jimmy was nodding enthusiastically from the front seat. "That's what the old men are calling it."

"Then the pocket starts about a half mile south of here."

"The pocket?" McCormick asked as he opened the notebook.

"Yeah," Hardcastle hadn't taken his eyes off the ridge. "That's what they called it. After the first week and a half, the Marines had overrun damn near the whole island. Had the airstrip secured, specialists brought in, regular camp down there at the south end.

"But up here, up in the ridges, there were still a couple thousand guys holed up in those caves. They had artillery, mortars, snipers. They were surrounded; they weren't going to _win_, for God's sake, but they would never surrender and they made every shot count." He shook his head. "It was just fighting for fighting's sake. Truth was, though, early on, there'd been a lot of 'suicide surrenders'--a wounded guy with a grenade hidden under him; got so you didn't trust an enemy soldier unless he was burnt to a crisp or in pieces."

The Land Rover had halted; the road seemed not so much to end but to peter out in an area of less-dense bush that barely qualified as a clearing.

"This is it," Jimmy announced. "End of the middle road. Long way from the coast." He pointed off to the south, straight through a dense bit of undergrowth and a precipitous ridge. "Got a trail there." He nodded to something small and dubious a little off to the right. "Goes up to the caves along Bloody Ridge. Monks use it sometimes, looking for bones."

McCormick climbed out of the Rover and squinted as he stowed his notebook and shouldered the pack. Now that they were inland, cut off from the ocean breeze, the sultry heat was intense and the smell of rotting vegetation was strong. _But it's just vegetation_.

He heard Hardcastle giving directions to Jimmy. ". . . on the coast side, end of the beach road, tomorrow morning, okay?" The younger man was nodding. Then he backed up the Rover, thwacking through the taller growth at the edge of the turn-around. He waved out the window once he got himself pointed in the right direction. "Careful of your step," he advised, still cheerful. Then there was only the receding sound of the engine, soon swallowed up in the drone of insects.

The judge offered McCormick one of the canteens. He took a grateful swig; he was already sweating and they hadn't even started the climb. "So," he asked tentatively, "you recognize _this_?"

Hardcastle was looking up a little, turning his head slowly. "Yeah," he said with very little hesitation. "This is the southern end of the ridge, 'bout the middle of the pocket—that was only about four hundred yards long. Four hundred by maybe twice that wide, and it took a month more to clean it out.

"They had the height on us." He pointed off to the trail. "So we were trying to get an emplacement up onto the ridge--mortars at least."

They started out with Hardcastle in the lead. The slope was gradual enough at first, with an occasional outcropping of rock to give some sort of idea of how far they'd come. McCormick wondered why the hell they'd ever thought they'd need blankets, as the sweat ran down the between his shoulder blades, soaking into the pack where it sat against the small of his back.

"There's one," the judge pointed down to the side. "See?"

The opening was nearly overgrown by roots and was not much larger than a man could crawl through, even if it had been cleared away. "That'd probably hold a couple guys, maybe three. Some of 'em went further back than they looked though. And low down like this one, would've taken it out with a 75 mm tank cannon, fired point blank. Not this one, though, there wouldn't have been much cave left after a shot like that."

McCormick lifted the pack off and set it down, rooting around in the side compartment for a moment.

"Taking a break already?" Hardcastle asked. "We haven't even gone a quarter of a mile."

"Nope," McCormick fished out a flashlight and flicked it on, shining the beam into the hole.

"What'cha doing that for?" Hardcastle protested.

"Just looking," the younger man replied. "That's what we're here to do, isn't it? Look? I mean, we know the guys from town already searched the bigger caves."

"Yeah, but this one isn't even big enough to fall into."

"Hey, there's something down there," McCormick pointed the flashlight around a thick root. "See?" A smooth, white curve, among the mossy green-brown, caught the light.

"Bone," the judge said flatly. "Skull. Not a 75 then, grenade maybe . . . or he was shot and crawled back in there to die."

McCormick rocked back on his heels and thumbed the flashlight off. He stood up and looked over his shoulder. The judge had already moved off up the trail. He hefted the pack and hurried to catch up.

"Probably a grenade," the judge continued, as though there had been no break in the conversation. "Problem was, most of 'em had the eight-second fuse, so even if you had a pretty steady hand and good aim, so the damn thing didn't bounce off a cliff and come back down at you, there'd still be enough time for the guy in the cave to pitch it back.

"So you had to judge the distance pretty fine, and hold it a few seconds before you threw it, so they wouldn't have time." He stood there, staring up at the promontory to their left, at a darker opening in the rock. "Beckman taught me that."

"How many seconds?" McCormick frowned.

"Well, less than eight, that's for sure. And the fuses weren't _perfect_." He was still staring up. Then, after a moment, his eyes took in the place where he was standing, another outcropping of rock, this one about fifteen feet wide with a shallow depression in the middle. "This is where we were pinned down," he finally said, with an air of weary certainty. "Mortar. The rest of the platoon was over there. Beckman right about here." He pointed to the ground not six feet distant. McCormick found himself looking at a spot not much different than any other.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, very memorable moment," Hardcastle replied quietly. "Longest twenty minutes of my entire life." He looked up again at the promontory and frowned. "That's the only thing that's different. Might've been where they fired from, must've been camouflaged then. They'd only fire when there was a reason, then they'd stow the weapons and batten down the entrances."

He headed off the trail in the direction of the opening. McCormick slipped the pack off, still clutching the flashlight, and followed him. They scrambled up the slope, using roots as handholds. McCormick had to slip the flashlight into his belt and use both hands. Any semblance of a path up had disappeared into erosion. They were both breathing hard by the time they got to the small shelf of rock outside the cave. Hardcastle turned around, looking down over the treetops to where they had been a few minutes before.

"There, that's where the rest of the platoon was." He pointed to the forward edge of the outcropping. "They got bunched up; we never figured out why. Beckman taught 'em better than that. We talked about that later on. He thinks maybe somebody stumbled; it was so damn noisy that you couldn't tell when someone went down, if they'd just fallen or they'd been hit. Anyway, as soon as there were four guys close together, the mortar came down, took out them and the two that were coming up behind."

"And Beckman?"

"He caught a couple of fragments—right leg, right side, one kicked a patch out of his scalp." The judge had turned away from the view and was looking down into the pitch-black of the cave. McCormick pulled the flashlight free and handed it to him.

"There," he said casting the beam on something half buried in the dirt just inside the opening, a rusted metal tube. He crouched down and put his hand across the end of it. "An 81 mm, I think. Most likely. If it had been a ninety, Beckman and I'd both be dead."

He straightened up slowly, keeping the beam on the unimpressive piece of hardware. "I think that's when I first realized that you couldn't make enough luck to survive a place like this. You could do everything right and still die."

McCormick had stepped inside the entrance. This cave was large enough to stand up in and extended back into impenetrable gloom. He caught a shine off something small a few feet further in. "There," he pointed. Hardcastle played the beam over it. Mark bent down to retrieve the film canister. "Fuji 200, same as the other," he smiled. "It's empty. That last entry was the day before he missed his flight, and he still hadn't found this place. He must've been _here_ the morning he disappeared."

The judge walked in slowly, shining the flashlight along the far wall in a slow sweep. The cave was a single chamber and otherwise empty, not even any bones. "So where did he go from here?"

"And who brought him this far?" McCormick asked, "You think he walked all the way down here?"

"Nope, not if he had a plane to catch in the afternoon," the judge replied. "Someone drove him down, and knew he was here, and they didn't tell anyone. So he hasn't just fallen in a hole somewhere."

"Okay, so he didn't have an accident. He must've been either kidnapped--"

"Or killed," the judge concluded.

"Well, just for now, can we maybe assume he was kidnapped? The other option's not as time-sensitive."

Hardcastle grunted a concession as he stepped back out onto the ledge and looked down in the direction they'd come.

"So the question is," McCormick stepped up behind him, looking out over his shoulder, "where would somebody put a kidnapped guy around here?"

"No, the question _is_, why the hell would anybody kidnap David Beckman?"

"Yeah, well, answer mine and we'll find out the answer to yours," McCormick shrugged.

"Further south there's some buildings, or what's left of 'em--the old Japanese military headquarters. Must be ruins by now. Or they might of put him in one of the larger caves."

"Then that's the way we should go, right?"

"If they killed him, they probably would have hid the body in a smaller cave; everywhere else it's coral rock and roots," the judge added grimly. "It was damn hard to dig in around here."

"Jeez," McCormick huffed, already starting the climb down, "when did you become such a fatalist?"

"Dunno," Hardcastle took one last look around before lowering himself over the edge, "this is a very fatal place."

00000

They followed the path southward, meandering off to investigate every cave they passed. Some were surprisingly large. McCormick found himself getting heartily tired of the ever-smiling dead. He thought the monks still had their work cut out for them and finally said as much.

"Oh, this is nothing," the judge replied. "Over on the east side of the island, where the landings were, they bulldozed mass graves. Had to bring water in, the rot had seeped into everything."

McCormick felt a shiver run down his sweat-soaked back, despite the muggy heat. He played the flashlight over the interior of yet another cave. Not too far from the entrance was a tall green-glass bottle, corroded with age but still stoppered. He picked it up and sloshed it.

"Sake bottle," the judge commented.

"Really?" McCormick nudged the cork with his thumb.

"But I wouldn't open it, if I were you," Hardcastle added dryly. "I know what _I_ would've put in a bottle, if I'd been stuck in a cave under artillery fire for weeks."

"Oh, yeah," McCormick made a face and set the bottle down. "Probably finished the sake off the first day."

The judge gave the cave a last perfunctory sweep of his flashlight and turned his back on it, ignoring the bones protruding from the rubble in the back. "Four weeks they sat up here and took it. Damn _Bushido, _warrior's code, no surrender. They were _surrounded_, on an _island_. They were thousands of miles from home, cut off from supplies. And still they'd come down at night and try to infiltrate us, kill a couple more before they got killed themselves. And we'd go back at 'em every day--artillery, mortars, grenades, flamethrowers, until every single one of them was dead . . . and half of us were killed or wounded."

McCormick glanced over his shoulder at the half-covered bones. "It sounds like . . ." he searched for a word, "_anarchy_."

"Well, let me tell you, there's a very fine line between bravery and mass insanity." The judge frowned, "And when it was over, hell, it wasn't even an _important_ island." He stopped for a moment, looking down at the trail in front of him, shaking his head slowly. "And now they're gonna develop it as a resort."

McCormick forced a smile, "Don't let it get to you, Judge. People stand around outside the Alamo eating ice cream and taking each other's pictures."

The judge didn't turn, still addressing the ground quietly. "And they don't learn a damn thing."

00000

The trail had come down into a flatter area south of the end of the ridge. McCormick watched the sun dropping with tropical precipitousness. "Dark soon," he said. "How much further you think?"

"I'm not sure, never came at it from this direction. There's a lot more vegetation now, but I don't think it's much more than a mile across this plateau, then another ridge, then the coast."

"So do we want to find a cave for the night, or push on?"

"Well, you're the one who's pitching the 'time-sensitive' thing," Hardcastle replied. "We oughta go till we can't see our feet."

McCormick gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Now you're cookin'." He shifted the pack a little as he took his bearings. "Kinda looks like it opens up down that way," he pointed southwest as he took the lead to break trail. Hardcastle grumbled something he couldn't quite make out as he fell in behind. They picked their way looking for openings in the thick undergrowth.

"So," McCormick finally conceded a while later, "that's it. I can't see my feet." With his abrupt halt the judge had almost run into him. "Should we risk flashlights?"

The judge said nothing for a moment. McCormick couldn't make out the details of his face but he seemed to be peering past him. "See that?" Hardcastle finally whispered.

McCormick glanced over his shoulder, and then turned to take a longer look. A flicker of light? There was the faintest glimmer that appeared and disappeared several times. He turned back to the formless shadow that was the judge and whispered, "No flashlights just yet, I think."

He picked his way almost blindly through the undergrowth, wishing he could dispense with the pack, but equally certain he'd never find it again if he took it off. He heard the judge right behind him also trying to move stealthfully with mixed results. Now the light was more visible, though it still flickered, and the campfire odor wafted their way.

From well within the bush McCormick could already make out the narrow clearing, the small fire, and the man sitting a few feet beyond it, with his back against a concrete wall that looked partly overgrown by the jungle. He felt the judge's hand on his shoulder nudged him silently to their right. Without a word he followed him on a detour away from the possible sentry.

They emerged carefully into the clearing, well back from the place where the man still sat. Now the walking was easier, only a few roots running up to the wall. Hardcastle said nothing until they had another fifty feet between them and the man by the fire. "He had a rifle," the judge whispered, "propped up against the wall."

McCormick hadn't seen it, but it so fit with their usual run of luck that he just had to believe. In a way it was the first really positive thing that had happened all day.

"Now what?" he whispered to the judge.

"We run this wall until we find a door; you get it open, I go in and reconnoiter."

"They have rifles; we have flashlights," McCormick protested reasonably.

"One rifle, maybe it was just a stick."

"Oh, sure, now it's a stick. When was the last time we ran into a bad guy with just a stick?" McCormick's whisper had become a little more urgent. "I think you should let me do the sneaking around. I'm _good_ at it."

"You've got the backpack," the judge pointed out.

"I'll let you carry it for a while."

They'd come to doorway-shaped depression in the wall. There was a sign at eye height, unreadable in the murk, but undoubtedly one that said 'No Entry' in several languages. McCormick felt for the door latch and found what appeared to be the standard island security measure—a metal flap secured by a padlock.

He eased the backpack off and congratulated himself silently on having had the foresight to bring a set of lock picks on a hike in the jungle, though the real reason had been his reluctance to leave evidence of criminal intent behind in Rapoa's rental house. The rest he did by feel, torn between the skilled craftsman's desire to make it look easy, and natural prudence for demonstrating these skills around the judge. He couldn't help it; it_ was_ easy. He felt a click and lifted the lock free from the hasp.

The judge had the decency not to comment. McCormick slipped the pick back in its case and the case into his vest pocket. He felt his way to the opposite edge of the door and touched the bottom hinge. It felt as rusty as he had suspected. He reached into the pack again and retrieved the insect repellent; it wasn't WD-40 but it had felt plenty oily when he put it on the night before. He dripped it onto both hinges from above, waiting for it to seep through.

Now he handed the judge the pack and said, lower than a whisper, "Stay _here_; one of us has to be able to go for help if this thing goes all to hell, right?" He didn't wait for an answer but eased the door open a crack. Even the indirect light from within seemed piercingly bright and he squinted for a few moments. Now he could see the judge's face and his disapproval was apparent, but even _he_ knew this was no time for an argument.

McCormick said nothing more as he slipped inside and pulled the door silently shut behind him. It was a deserted hallway. He heard faint noises of habitation from further forward, voices rising and falling in a language that wasn't English and wasn't anything else he recognized.

There were closed doors along either side of the hall. He made his way down the corridor, listening carefully at each one, only silence. But the fourth door on the right differed from the others by the presence of one of the ubiquitous padlocks. McCormick smiled, not even bothering to listen.

This time he did the bug juice trick first, then slipped the bottle back into one pocket while taking the picks from another. This lock succumbed in less time than it would have taken for him to find the key to the gatehouse on his own key ring. He pushed lightly on the door, wishing he could warn the occupant. The light stabbed inside and fell across a huddled shape crouched against the far wall of the small room.

The man lifted his head, peered at him through eyelids nearly swollen shut and rasped out, "Who the hell are you?"

McCormick held out the palm of his hand to signal silence, then moved inside, shutting the door behind him gently. "Don't worry," he smiled, in the tiny sliver of light that remained, "I'm the guy from National Geographic."

McCormick's liking for David Beckman went up a notch right off when this reply only elicited a wry smile and a quick retort, "So where's your photographer?"

"Outside," McCormick grinned. "He's a friend of your dad's named Hardcastle."

"No shit?" Beckman's expression gave way to utter surprise. "The _Judge_? But he's . . . _old._"

"I keep tryin' to tell him that, but he doesn't listen to me. Can you walk?"

Beckman nodded, "I think so, as long as it's not too fast. Hell, point me the way outta here and I'll _crawl_." As if to prove it, he was already bracing himself to his feet against the wall, though there was a visible teeter and some raspy breathing before he was done.

McCormick eased the door open again and cautiously listened for activity outside. Hearing nothing but the same murmuring voices, he got Beckman's arm over his shoulder and steered him out and down the hallway. Their progress was worryingly slow with a pronounced limp from the injured man and a small grunt of pain when McCormick had lifted his arm.

"Sorry," Mark said.

"'s nothin'," Beckman replied breathlessly.

Once through the back door, McCormick watched as a shadowy shape coalesced from the edge of the trees. The moon was just up and he could see Hardcastle gesturing. They continued their slow progress until they were within a few feet of the judge who whispered, "Davey?"

McCormick interrupted the reunion, "_Go_. That way." He nodded east toward the moonlight filtering through the trees. "There's more of them inside. They may have more _sticks_." The judge waved them ahead and fell in at the rear to cover their retreat, though exactly what he would do against armed men McCormick had no idea.

With the moon's assistance, they kept their bearings more or less due east and, after a struggle that seemed interminable, intersected the path that had brought them in. McCormick turned left onto it gratefully and, now that he knew they were a good half-mile from the sentry, stopped. He let Beckman's arm down. The man swayed and then leaned against a tree.

Despite their slow progress, Hardcastle had fallen back a good ways. McCormick waited for him with a worried frown, hearing his harsh breathing before he saw the man.

"You okay?" He reached to take the pack off of the older man. The judge nodded wordlessly. McCormick looked over his shoulder at Beckman. "Can you walk on your own a bit?" The younger man nodded, too. No one had a lot of words to spare.

_We need a cave. _McCormick hefted the pack and led them slowly up the path.

00000

They made very slow progress towards the first ridge. McCormick stopped frequently to allow the other two to rest. He was mentally trying to figure out just exactly when Hardcase had fallen ill. _Probably over the afternoon._ When he'd reached out to unship the canteens from the older man at one stop, he'd seemed a little warm, but, hell, it'd been close to a hundred degrees today.

Now it was down to a sultry eighty and he'd caught Hardcastle shivering. _Oh, great_. He rooted in the backpack for their rudimentary medical supplies and dug out a bottle of aspirin, holding it up to try and read the label in the moonlight. "Here," he shook two out for the judge and passed him the nearly empty canteen. "You, too," he got out two more for Beckman.

"What's up?" the younger man asked as McCormick passed him the pills and the canteen.

"Dunno, how long does it take to come down with malaria?"

"Never, if you take chloroquine for six weeks before you come out here."

"Six _weeks_?" McCormick laughed worriedly. "We didn't even have six _hours_ notice."

"In that case, about a week, week and a half," Beckman replied soberly.

"Not that then, at least." He crossed back over to where the judge was now sitting. He crouched down. "Okay, Hardcase, you wanna save me some time and tell me the symptoms or is it gonna be twenty questions?"

The judge looked up at him blearily. "Fever," he conceded. McCormick already had his hand out, touching the judge's forehead.

"Yeah, I figured that," he said laconically. "What else?"

"That's it," the judge shrugged and winced. "Except it hurts like a son'uv'a--"

"_What_ hurts?" Mark interrupted him worriedly.

"Everything," the judge replied, "my _bones_ hurt."

"Dengue," Beckman said. "They call it 'break-bone fever' 'cause that's what it feels like. I caught it once, rafting on the Sepik."

"How serious?" McCormick looked over his shoulder. Beckman limped over to them and lowered himself down slowly.

"Not _fatal_ serious. Well, sometimes in kids, I think," Beckman's brow was wrinkled, like he was trying to remember. Then he looked up at Hardcastle. "If it makes you feel any better, Judge, I know exactly how you feel. I've just had the crap beat out of me for four days." Then he turned to McCormick, who had his forehead propped on the palm of his hand. "I don't think we're walking out of here."

"We need a cave," Mark concluded earnestly.

"Well," Beckman looked up the trail, "I know one they don't know about yet."

00000

Toward the end it had been Beckman with the pack and Hardcastle with his arm draped heavily across Mark's shoulders, alternately shivering and muttering. The medicine seemed to have done little for the fever and the water was entirely gone now. McCormick had heard a promising trickle after they'd left the trail but Beckman told him it wasn't far now, and he'd decided he'd come back once he had the two of them safely stowed.

They hadn't seen the cave Beckman led them to on the way down. Unlike the others, its opening was flush with the surrounding ground. _This is the kind the customs guy was warning us about._

"I almost stepped in it," Beckman said, sitting himself down and dangling his legs over the edge. "That's how I found it the first time, 'bout a week, maybe ten days ago." He frowned, "Hey, what day is it, anyway?"

"Saturday, I think," McCormick lowered the judge to the ground. "How far down?" He unshipped the flashlight.

"'Bout three feet, right under the opening. Then it slopes down," he pointed west.

"Okay, I'll go first. You can help him?"

Beckman took the flashlight. McCormick lowered himself down and then crawled backwards a little ways down the incline. He reached up for the flashlight and turned it behind him. The roof was higher further in. Hardcastle climbed in heavily, then Beckman lowered the backpack down and himself behind it. The three of them edged downward to bottom.

McCormick heaved a sigh of relief. The judge was shivering in earnest now, but at least they could stop moving for a bit and _regroup_. He dug in the pack for a couple of cold lights and snapped them. They gave off a surprising amount of light of an unfortunate green-yellow hue. Both Beckman and the judge looked ghastly, but Mark was figuring he probably didn't look much better himself.

He laid the light sticks where they'd do the most good as he undid the ties holding the blankets beneath the pack. He handed the first one to the judge and, when he appeared to be simply sitting there with it in his lap, leaned over to unfold it and wrap it around the man's shoulders.

He started to hand the second one to Beckman, who shook his head and said, "I'm fine." McCormick nodded and spread it out over the judge's legs, tucking it in as best he could.

"Better?" he asked.

Hardcastle nodded, still shaking, although it looked like the real answer was '_miserable_'. "It's kinda like the flu . . . with teeth."

Mark sat back a little. As long as he still could joke about it, it was probably a good sign. "I'm gonna take the canteens and head back down to where I heard that trickle. Might take me a few minutes." He already had the straps over his chest and was scrambling back up to the entrance.

"We won't go anywhere," Beckman replied wearily.

00000

The moon was nearly at the zenith. McCormick looked down at the dial of his watch, 1:30 am. Beckman might be game to crawl all the way back to town, but the judge looked to be getting worse by the minute. McCormick shook his head as he made his way down the hill. _Wish to hell he'd said something._

It was only a trickle, flowing into a shallow pool. Despite appearing fresh, the taste was a little bitter. He filled the first canteen, drank half of it off while filling the second and then refilled the first. He had them both capped and slung over his shoulders, when he heard distant voices. He froze for a moment, trying to get the direction. Finally, convinced that they were well away south, he climbed back up the hill.

He whispered a warning into the cave and lowered the canteens in. Then he spread a few long fronds across the opening, slipped in through the remaining space, and pulled the cover over more evenly.

He glanced back over at the two, Beckman looking at him worriedly, the judge appearing to be asleep. He put his finger to his lips and crouched under the opening, listening for several long moments. Nothing. He let a breath out.

"They're already out looking. But I think they're pretty far away," He scooted down to Beckman with the canteens, keeping his voice below a whisper, partly not to wake the judge. "You're sure they don't know about this one?"

"Very sure," Beckman took the canteen. His hands were shaking and, after a moment, Mark supported the container so he could lift it to his lips. Even without the green light, the man's face would have been spectacularly discolored from the mass of bruises and, from the stiffness of his movements, McCormick guessed the damage didn't end there.

"So," Mark connected the dots, "what's so special about this one, that they'd spend four days working you over?"

Beckman smiled through swollen lips. "Ah, yeah. Should of figured since you're from National Geographic, you'd be pretty quick on the up-take."

Mark recapped the canteen and smiled. "My name is McCormick, Mark." He held out a hand.

"That's it, _McCormick_." Beckman shook his head. "Sorry, I couldn't remember it. My dad mentioned you a while back. I knew he'd said the name. You help the judge out, investigations and all?"

"I clean the pool, too," Mark grinned.

"And international search and rescue missions," Beckman looked bemused. "I can't believe my dad sent him."

"Yeah, well, the firm is apparently expanding its mission to include the global perspective. I think we're going to need a better brand of insect repellent." McCormick scratched his nose. "So what's with this cave?"

"Over there," Beckman pointed past the judge into the shadowy far corner. There's a crevice behind those rocks."

McCormick put the canteen down and grabbed one of the light sticks. He crawled around the two men and held it over the corner, illuminating a deeper hole about two feet across and three deep. Small but sturdy-looking wooden crates were lying neatly stacked within. The one nearest the top had its lid unfastened. Mark had an uncanny feeling that he knew what he was going to find as he lifted up the lid.

He let out a sharp breath. Even in the weird light, the luster was unmistakable. He picked up one of the small, but surprisingly heavy bars and hefted it up into view. The imprint read '500g' followed by some other, less informative markings. He looked down again, counting the bars and then the boxes.

"How'd you find it? And what the hell's it doing here?"

"Yamashita's gold," the words came from Hardcastle, not as asleep as he'd looked, spoken clearly and with a certain intensity. "They talked about it for years; called him the Tiger of Malaysia--overran Singapore and stripped it bare. They said he got away with billions in gold and a lot of it never made it back to Japan. Most of it was supposed to have been hidden in caves in the Philippines."

"Well," said Mark dryly, "rounding down to seventeen ounces, and up to $310 an ounce. Twenty bars to the box, ten boxes to the hole. We're looking at a million dollars in bullion here."

"And the worst piece of bad luck I could have had," Beckman shook his head in disgust. "All done with the site evaluation, I decide to get historical, end up lost, almost fall in a hole and break my leg, and then find this." He made a look of disgust.

McCormick's eyebrows had gone up a notch.

"The last thing I wanted was publicity for an island I was about to pitch as our next big resort development. Do you have any idea how that would impact on property values? Hell, we probably wouldn't even be able to get development rights; the place would be crawling with treasure hunters. And who the hell does this stuff belong to anyway, Judge?"

Hardcastle frowned, and spoke slowly, "Not sure. If it's got identifying markings, it might be traceable, but forty years is a long time. The government of Paupao would probably have a claim, and maybe Malaysia. We're talking about a lot of wrangling."

"There'd be a finder's fee, though, wouldn't there?" Mark interjected.

"Maybe," Hardcastle replied.

"Yeah, ten percent, minus all the hassle of trying to collect." Beckman shook his head. "I wasn't going to let that get in the way of a ten million dollar resort development."

Mark looked down at the gold bar and sadly restacked it on top of the others. Then he looked at Beckman, puzzled, "So if you just turned your back on it and walked away, then how did those guys get on to you?"

"Oh, that," Beckman put his hand to his forehead. "I got myself unlost, made it all the way back to town. I was planning on telling the authorities, maybe through the American liaison, once the development deal went through. But then I started thinking, hell, I'd left my fingerprints and boot prints all over in here. I had no way of proving how much gold was here in the first place, and if someone lightened the load, or got here before the authorities did, I'd be the one they'd accuse of stealing it. Who'd believe I hadn't helped myself to some?"

McCormick tried to remember just where he'd touched the boxes and the bars.

"So I wrote a note to the liaison, Troutmann. That was Tuesday morning, and I knew he was in the office most Tuesdays. I figured he could advise me of what would be the best approach and, if worse came to worst, he could vouch for my story later on."

"You didn't go see him yourself?" McCormick asked.

"Nope, I wanted to make one last trip up here. I was still looking . . ." he trailed off. Hardcastle said nothing. "What I should of done was scrapped the note and come back to this cave, wiped everything down and gotten the hell out of Dodge."

McCormick nodded at what would have been precisely his plan of action.

"So the note fell into the wrong hands," Hardcastle muttered. "Did you give it to someone to deliver?"

"Jimmy, that guy Rapoa's nephew. He drove me up here that morning."

McCormick and the judge looked at each other. McCormick spoke first, "Well, there goes our ride in the morning."

"'Dunno," Hardcastle replied. "but I don't think we could of made it down there in time anyway." He laid his head back and started shivering again. "Well, I'd call this a pickle."

00000

He'd coaxed some water into the judge, along with another aspirin. He couldn't persuade him to get out from under the blankets, even though at last touch his forehead had been hotter still. He didn't have the heart to take away what little comfort they offered. The man was still shaking, and now drifting in and out of awareness.

Beckman had laid down, with his head on the backpack, but his eyes were still open. "How is he?" he asked.

"I dunno," McCormick looked over at him. There was an edge of fear to his voice. "Feel's hotter than before."

"He'll be okay; he's tough." Beckman said, more to himself than to McCormick. "This is so weird; him saving me."

"He does stuff like this," Mark said, "really, all the time."

"I know; he saved my dad that day, the day he was injured. Dad said he put the tourniquet on; there weren't any corpsmen around, and then he carried him back to the aid station, a mile and a half, part of it under fire."

"The Marines never leave one of their own behind," Mark murmured.

"Dad said he should have gotten a medal, but instead he got into trouble because he wasn't back at regimental headquarters like they thought he should be."

McCormick shook his head and smiled, "That's Hardcase, very little respect for authority, unless it's him." He touched the man's forehead again and the smile faded. He looked up at Beckman again. "How many rolls of film did you shoot while you were here?"

The other man seemed startled by the question. "Um, six or seven. One each of the last two days. Those were for my dad."

"You didn't send any off to be developed?"

Beckman shook his head with a questioning look

"They're all missing, except one. Someone broke into the storage shed where Rapoa put your stuff." Mark thought for a moment and then went on, "You shot pictures the day you came up here, shot them as you went along?"

Beckman nodded.

"If someone had those pictures, and knew the area really well, do you think they could find their way here?"

"God, probably."

"And how many days to get pictures developed and get them back?"

"Maybe two, if they sent someone with them and he paid extra for a rush job. Maybe even less if they chartered a plane."

"Well, let's hope they aren't _that _creative. The film was stolen sometime last night."

"They could have it back by midday." Beckman grimaced. "This is a good place to hide, but a lousy place to be trapped."

"You think he'll be able to move in the morning?" McCormick asked worriedly. Hardcastle groaned and muttered something unintelligible. Without much apparent thought, Mark leaned him forward a little, to get an arm around his back. He settled him against his shoulder and wrapped the blanket over the man's chest.

Beckman watched the whole maneuver silently. After a moment he said, "All we have to do is get away from here. They'll find the gold--"

"And they'll do their best to hunt us down and kill us. Potential witnesses," Mark added, with the voice of extensive practical experience. "Why didn't you tell them where this stuff was?"

"Because I figured they'd kill me as soon as they knew what they wanted to know."

"See? Same thing."

"You drive too damn fast." The startling non-sequiter came from Hardcastle, in a gruff voice, taking both men by surprise.

McCormick recovered first; he chuckled and said, "Not driving at all these days, Judge."

"Damn right," he was louder now with more vehemence, "and I'll ground you permanently if I catch you up on Mulholland again with that crowd."

McCormick felt a flush of embarrassed confusion, which was not helped when Beckman stated the obvious, "That was Tom. He used to go up there in the 'Vette every chance he got."

The last part of this was overridden by an even more emphatic tirade, "And if you try to hotwire the damn thing again, I swear I'll sell it."

"Well," Mark spoke softly, "_that_ might be directed at me." He felt the judge's forehead with his free hand.

"Nope, still Tom, jeez he and the judge used to go at it," Beckman added. "You know, I went up there with Tom one time, to Mulholland, just once--never again. I knew the meaning of the word 'fear'; Tom didn't."

Mark looked down at Hardcastle, who'd sunk back into muttered imprecations, then he looked back over at Beckman. He asked hesitantly, "You knew Tom pretty well?"

"Pretty well," Beckman conceded, "because of our dads, though. The four of us used to go camping. My dad liked to get out but he couldn't walk around that much. So we'd go fishing, maybe four, five times a year. Weekend trips."

"Sounds . . .nice," McCormick said.

"Oh," Beckman glanced at him, "yeah, I guess it was, very Norman Rockwell. But I always used to come home from those weekends feeling like I'd run a race and come in second place."

"To Tom?"

"Yup. There wasn't a single thing he didn't do better than me." Beckman smiled. "And most of the time, I don't even think he was trying."

"But you were friends?" McCormick looked puzzled.

"Oh, yeah, he'd make me crazy sometimes, but you couldn't not like the guy. It was like an infection."

McCormick thought though he was hearing it for the first time, there was something expected in Beckman's words, like finding the gold in the box. He'd known it was there before he'd seen it.

"It was hard, though," Beckman's voice had gotten a little distant. McCormick thought maybe he was going to leave it at that. Then he went on, "You know, it was my dad he came to visit, that day."

McCormick's face must've revealed his confusion. Beckman glanced over at him and then went on, "You know, on his eighteenth birthday, that evening, he showed up at our door looking real nervous." Beckman shook his head slowly, "Now you gotta understand, 'nervous' and 'Tom Hardcastle' did not belong in the same sentence. So I thought at first maybe he'd smashed up the 'Vette, or he'd gone out and had a few to celebrate, and there'd been an accident, maybe somebody'd gotten hurt."

McCormick said nothing, not even nodding.

"But it wasn't anything like that. He asked if my dad was home, and then they went in the study together. They were in there a while. I didn't find out until later. Tom had gone and enlisted in the Marines. He wanted someone to help him break the news to his dad." Beckman smiled a little sadly. "It took everybody by surprise. He was supposed to be starting college that fall. He had a pretty good draft number, better than mine."

"So, why?"

Beckman looked thoughtful. "Well, he told everybody he thought it was the right thing to do, which kinda begs the question, if you ask me. But later on, right before he left, I talked to him. I asked him, and he said he knew if he'd hung around, doing what he'd been doing, that something bad would've happened, that he was losing control. He said some nights, up there on Mulholland, he just didn't want to take his foot off the gas when he hit the curve. He said he didn't think he'd make it to twenty the way he was going."

"Oh, yeah," McCormick exhaled, "just keep pushing the edge, and eventually you'll find it"

Beckman nodded. "I'm not saying he was suicidal."

"No, it's different," Mark said decisively.

"Yeah." Beckman gave him a sharp glance. "So, he traded it all in on a year 'in country'."

"—and he never made it to twenty," McCormick said flatly, then he shook his head.

"My dad used to wonder; he used to say maybe the guys his age, they didn't talk about that stuff enough, didn't tell their kids about what they'd been through. Nobody talked about it. He said it was bad enough when people treated you like a hero, but volunteering for 'Nam . . . the best they'd do is ask you 'why?'."

McCormick looked away, at the shadowy wall.

"Yeah, well, don't feel bad. We all asked it. And even Tom couldn't just admit that any of it had to do with a sense of duty . . . God forbid, not that, then I really would have told him he was nuts. But my dad understood, and in the end I think the judge did, too."

"But he's still dead," McCormick shook his head again.

"Yeah, and I look for beaches to turn into resorts, so people can spend their two weeks annual vacation sipping drinks from coconuts. Lives of quiet desperation, most of us."

"Where there's life, there's hope," McCormick countered quietly.

Beckman smiled. "You really believe that, huh?" He laughed and, changing the subject, added, "Well, I'm glad, 'cause we're really up the creek with no paddle here."

McCormick looked back at him. "Nah, I've been there. Hell, I've been there with no _boat_." He looked down at the judge again; the shaking had stopped. He was still hot, but now a slick of sweat had appeared on his forehead. McCormick said wishfully, "I think he'll be better in the morning . . . you too. We all just need to get some sleep. Tomorrow we'll figure out something." Mark tried not to look too worried about this last part.

00000

The light sticks had faded to a pallorous glow just as the first glimmerings of dawn could be seen through the fronds over the mouth of the cave. Mark had been awake far a while; he wasn't sure he'd ever been entirely asleep. Hardcastle was still quiet, too warm but not shivering. Beckman had been restless, and when McCormick finally reached over and shook his shoulder gently, he'd bolted awake and jerked away with a quiet gasp.

"Sorry," Mark steadied him with one hand. "Just me, didn't mean to startle you."

"S'okay," he took a breath and looked around blearily.

"It's morning." McCormick said quietly. "You think you can walk?"

"Oh . . . yeah," Beckman said slowly. "Like I said, I'll crawl if I have to. How 'bout him?" he looked over at the judge.

"Dunno," Mark said, "he's still got a fever, I think. I haven't tried to wake him up yet."

"Well, if he can't, maybe we can carry him."

McCormick looked at him dubiously. "Beckman, you'll be lucky if you can manage walking by yourself, and he's got forty pounds on me."

"Then you may have to leave the two of us behind and go get help."

"Not in this cave," McCormick shook his head. "And which way? Back along the trail north? They're bound to be watching that. And south goes right past their hideout, and it's where Jimmy is expecting us to--"

"East," Hardcastle interrupted. Mark darted a surprised look in his direction; he was lying there, eyes open, looking fully awake.

Mark masked his relief with a sardonic smile. "You aren't getting a vote until your fever's down and you're rational."

"I'm always rational," Hardcastle frowned as he tried to push himself into a sitting position. Mark grabbed one of the canteens and moved over to his side to give him a hand up. "I'm fine," the judge blustered at the help but took a long swig of water. "Ugh," he grimaced, "you put iodine in this?"

"No," McCormick smiled, "It comes in that flavor. Anyway, it's from a spring, I thought we'd take our chances; I think the parasites can't be much worse than the iodine."

"We're all gonna be sorry later on," Hardcastle carped gently.

"Yeah, well, you gotta give Charlie something to keep his practice interesting. Dengue fever, what the hell are you gonna come up with next, Hardcase?" He took the canteen back and recapped it. "So, you okay?" He looked at him more closely. The judge made a slow waggle with one hand. Mark nodded, relieved at this much improvement. "Then why east?"

"Mostly because it's not north or south," Hardcastle said with a shrug. "We're still south of the pocket, right?"

McCormick looked at Beckman, who nodded and said, "Just a little."

"Then there's a road between the two hills to the east of us, at least there was. That was how they got artillery into the valley, faster than bringing it all the way around from the north end. It's maybe less than a mile that way, through to the coast, to the landing beaches." Hardcastle frowned, "though it seemed longer then."

"And then what?" McCormick asked.

"Then we go north, along the coast. There's no road there, but there's the beach."

"Six miles?" McCormick, "You think you're up to that?"

The judge laughed abruptly. "Hell, I don't even know if I'm up to the mile over there. We can worry about the beach when we get to it."

00000

Mark abandoned the backpack, along with the non-essential supplies, in the next cave they passed. Free of that burden, he could move back and forth, to help whoever was in the most trouble at the moment. It was slow going, with frequent stops to rest. If there'd ever been a road along the route Hardcastle pointed out, it had long since been consumed by the jungle, and breaking trail thought this undergrowth was hard work even for a man who wasn't injured or sick.

"Not much further," the judge said encouragingly, but he was panting. They'd left their sole source of water back behind them now. McCormick hadn't found any other. They'd used the canteens sparingly, but now that the sun was up, it was drink or die.

When they finally heard the sound of surf pounding sand off in the distance ahead, McCormick felt a surge of relief. Not that this was really a solution to anything. That was salt water, and there was still a six mile hike between them and safety, but he was beginning to think any change of scenery would be an improvement.

It was only when he stepped out of the brush, into the full, blazing tropical sun, that he began to think maybe the jungle had some advantages.

He'd had the judge by the arm the last hundred yards or so. Now he sat him down in the nearest patch of shade, under a stunted palm, and went back to retrieve a staggering Beckman. Once they were all together, he could see he wasn't getting them any further. There was a little less than half a canteen of water left, and the sun was scorching down on them despite being only halfway to the zenith.

"Six miles?" he asked the judge who, having no words to spare, only nodded. "I can get there and back in three hours, if I can find somebody with four-wheel drive. You two stay here, stay in the shade.

"Okay?" he asked, waiting for some sort of response. Beckman looked done-in and he thought maybe the judge was spiking another fever, though it was hard to tell in this heat. He put the canteen down between them, in easy reach, knowing full well it would probably still be there when he got back. He was tempted to just divvy it up between the two of them right now to be sure it got used.

Finally the judge said, "Go on; we'll be okay. Sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back." He tilted his head back against the trunk of the palm, then lifted it a second later and fixed McCormick with a questioning look, "You got water?"

Mark flashed him a quick but convincing grin and tapped the canteen that hung at his hip, hoping it didn't look as empty as it was.

"Good," the judge let his head drop back again. "It's a hell'uv'a hot walk."

"Okay, don't wander off. I want to find you where I left you," Mark patted his knee and stood up.

He glanced over his shoulder as he headed up the beach; the two men huddled under the palm looked very much alone and vulnerable. He turned forward again and picked up his pace.

00000

He was at least a mile up the beach, around a gentle curve and into a natural inlet, when he first smelled the fire.

Damn. He edged up into the brush along the landward side of the beach. He couldn't afford to cut too far back. There were no paths here, and he would lose valuable time even if he didn't get lost. He thought maybe he could edge up on them, and once he had them in sight, go just far enough inland to evade detection.

The smell was stronger now, and up ahead, around another bend, he saw smoke rising above the treetops. He made his way cautiously forward and crouched in among the fronds, parting them just enough to see.

Three men were standing by a pyre of impressive proportions. McCormick smacked himself mentally. Just who did he think would be building a campfire in midday on the beach? _Must be lack of sleep_. Somehow when he'd pictured monks, there'd been saffron robes involved. These guys wore loose cotton shirts and three quarter length pants, tropical working garb. Two of them did have shaved heads; the third looked younger.

He stepped out onto the beach, trying not to look as if he'd been skulking. If none of them spoke English, this was going to be tough. One of the men, the younger one with hair, had turned toward him. He waved.

"Hello, sorry to interrupt." Now that he was closer he could see the flames were beginning to lick out from between the neatly cross-stacked logs. It was going to be a heck of a fire once it got going. Arranged on the flat upper surface of the stack were about a dozen skulls, in varying degrees of completeness. He suddenly felt like a boorish intruder, but desperation overrode this and he continued forward.

The younger man stepped away from the pyre, looking politely reserved. He made a very small bow. "This is a funeral ceremony; if you would please--"

"I know," Mark made his own awkward attempt at a bow. "I am very sorry. It's an emergency though. I have two friends back there, one very ill, the other injured. I need to get them back into town. Oh," he paused awkwardly, "my name is Mark McCormick." He tried the bowing thing again.

"Hija Ankichi," the young man said. He looked back over his shoulder at the pyre, which was now building up to an intense conflagration. The other two men had continued on, one stacking more branches onto the pile, the other chanting. The young man turned back to McCormick. "Give me a moment, if you would. He returned to the man who was chanting, and waited patiently.

Mark tried not to fidget; he could feel the heat from the blaze even where he stood. He was beginning to think he might have to sit down, which would probably increase his boorishness by a significant degree. Finally the two men spoke, or at least the younger one did, gesturing in McCormick's direction as he did so. At last the older one nodded.

The younger man returned. "How far away are your friends?" he asked politely.

00000

The short journey back was long enough for Mark to get the bare details of the operation. Hija was Okinawan, and not a monk, but he was nimble enough to get up and down the cliffs. He was also good enough with engines to keep the monk's ancient jeep running most of the time. They'd purchased it from a sharp-dealing islander a few years back and nursed it along through a dozen visits.

Mark listened with half his attention, the rest watching the beach ahead for the familiar landmark. "There," he pointed it out, coming up around the curve. Beckman had seen them, too and was jostling the judge's shoulder and waving weakly.

McCormick had the newly refilled canteen by its strap and was out of the jeep almost before it had pulled to a stop. He handed it to Beckman first, who took only a quick drink and then passed it back down to where Mark was crouched in front of Hardcastle.

"Hey, Judge, got us a ride," McCormick waited anxiously as the older man opened his eyes and looked around.

"Didn't seem like three hours," Hardcastle looked puzzled.

"Nah, only thirty minutes," McCormick smiled to mask his worry. "This is our rescuer--"

The driver introduced himself. This time the bow was a little deeper, either in deference to age, or because of the title McCormick had used.

The judge was frowning up at the man and the vehicle behind him. McCormick held his breath for a minute, hoping Hardcastle was in the here-and-now. "He's from Okinawa," he said quietly. "He's with the Bone Recovery Team. They're working right up the beach. They lent us a ride."

Hardcastle seemed to be thinking this over. Then he said, with a certain amount of incredulity, "It's a Jeep." He put his fingers to his temples. "It's one of _those_ Jeeps."

"What can I say?" McCormick shrugged. "Good maintenance, no salt on the roads."

"My head is killin' me."

"Come on, up." McCormick got his arm under the other man's and lifted. Hardcastle groaned, but made it to his feet on the first try. Beckman reached out to help but McCormick waved him ahead to the vehicle.

He settled the judge in the back seat and climbed in next to him, with Beckman up front. Hija seemed to understand the nature of the Jeep's suspension, and took the return trip at a very moderate pace.

The smoke from the pyre was now visible as a black column ahead on the left. Hardcastle watched silently as they rounded the curve of the beach and the blazing pile came into view. Their driver pulled up a short distance off and begged their pardon as he exited, walking over to the two others.

McCormick turned back to the judge, offered him the canteen again, and said, "The other two are the monks." He got Hardcastle to take a drink, then he added, worriedly, "This would not be a good time to have a flashback."

"It's only the bones," Hardcastle pondered cryptically, "not the same at all."

Then the other two men were approaching, Hija doing introductions, polite bows on all sides. The judge cleared his throat, and addressed the driver in a tone that seemed oddly formal. "Tell them," then he paused, faltered, as though he wasn't sure how to put it, "tell them it is good that someone takes the time to do this."

Hija smiled seriously and spoke a few words back to the others. When he was finished, there was an awkward pause, and then Hardcastle continued. "Up here, a little ways further, just before the salt pond, there's a place; it may be overgrown now, about five hundred, maybe more, buried there. Twenty-five yards north of the pond."

Hija spoke again. The older of the other two replied. Hija looked thoughtful as he relayed the words back, "He thanks you. He says in the end we are all white ashes and the memories of others."

Then he climbed back into the vehicle and they started off again. McCormick had begun to relax just a little. Then it occurred to him that both the rented house, and Rapoa's own headquarters, lay between them and town, and either place would make an excellent spot for an ambush. They had no weapons, and both Beckman and the judge could barely stay on their feet, let alone deal with even unarmed assailants. And he couldn't very well let their driver run headfirst into some kind of trouble without at least a warning.

He leaned forward and tapped Hija's shoulder lightly. The man half turned back to him. "Is there any way back to town besides the beach and the main road?" Mark asked.

Hija shook his head. "Through the jungle, on foot, yes, not by car."

"I think we may have a problem, then. The men I told you about, the ones who kidnapped Beckman, here, I think they might be waiting for us, either at the house we rented on the beach, or at Rapoa's place. You know where that is?"

"Rapoa's, certainly. He's the man who sold us this jeep. We store it at his place when we are not here."

McCormick's smiled wrily. "And I'll bet the odometer never budges an inch between visits."

Hija's own smile was thin. "I have never doubted that for Rapoa the wheel of life moves in both directions."

"Yeah, well," Hardcastle muttered his interruption, "Rapoa may be a weasel, but he's not _our_ weasel. Someone broke the lock off the storage area at his place. That means he's not the main player."

"That was Jimmy, right?" McCormick asked. "I mean, he was the one who dropped Beckman off and then didn't tell anyone where he went.

"Jimmy's not our weasel either, though what he did was closer to criminal intent."

"He didn't break into the storage are?" McCormick frowned. It was a small island, and he was running out of suspects.

"Listen, Jimmy must've been freelancing that morning, when he dropped Davey off."

Beckman had turned around to follow the conversations. Now he cocked his head and said, "Well, maybe. I didn't make the arrangements in advance. I only talked to Jimmy that morning."

"See?" Hardcastle said. "So Jimmy gives him a ride, pockets the fee and doesn't give his uncle his split. So far, just a little shady family business cheating. He drops off Dave, makes arrangements to pick him up to get him back for his plane, Right?"

Beckman nodded.

"Then you get kidnapped. You don't show for the pickup. Jimmy comes back empty handed. But he can't tell anyone you are missing because that would mean his uncle would find out about the side job."

"Then Jimmy is our weasel," McCormick reasoned, "He set Beckman up to be kidnapped, and he broke into the storage area."

"What are the odds?" Hardcastle disagreed. "I think if he were the brains behind all the rest of this, he wouldn't be trying to scam his uncle out of a couple of bucks. And would Jimmy have to break the locks at his uncle's place? You saw Rapoa hand him the whole key ring before he drove us up yesterday."

McCormick frowned. "Then who the hell is it?"

Hardcastle shrugged, "Probably the guy Davey sent word to. Troutmann. What else did you say in your note?"

Beckman made a face. "I told him I was going back up to the caves that morning, and I'd be back in time for a meeting with him before my plane left."

"But he's not even here," McCormick protested.

"Well, he hasn't been in his office since Tuesday," Hardcastle replied. "But that doesn't mean he left altogether."

They were approaching the rented house from the beach side. McCormick was still relieved, despite the judge's reassurances, to see no one waiting for them there.

Hija drove the narrow path back to the main road, and once on that, it was only a short ways north to Rapoa's. Once again Mark felt himself tensing up, and this time his concerns were justified. There was a knot of men in front of the house, Rapoa and Jimmy among them, and the approach of the jeep seemed to set of a flurry of pointing and gesticulating.

Hija looked over his shoulder. Hardcastle gestured for him to stop.

Mark frowned. "You sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. That looks like the local police with him, doesn't it?"

"Your faith in international law enforcement is touching, Judge." McCormick dropped his voice and leaned in toward his ear. "I'm still carrying some _equipment_ in my vest pocket."

"They're not looking for somebody who _picks _locks, McCormick," the judge explained wearily. "They're looking for someone who _smashes_ them."

"Yeah, well, sometimes the subtler distinctions get lost, once they see the black bag equipment lying around."

"Yeah, and let that be a lesson to you. If you'da just stuck to the National Geographic stuff--"

"We'd still be sitting outside the back door of that old military headquarters."

Beckman stifled a laugh. Hardcastle glared. The officer of the law walked up, looking put-upon, with Rapoa sticking to his side speaking fast in the local language. Jimmy was hanging back a little, looking like he wanted to be elsewhere. Beckman stared at him blandly.

Hija frowned back at McCormick. "He is accusing you of breaking into his storage shed."

McCormick turned to the judge as if to say, 'See?'

The officer, a short, balding, practical-appearing man with the weary continence of someone who spends a lot of time dealing with stolen pigs, tried to detach himself from Rapoa. But McCormick could see the wheels of logic turning in the man's eyes, balancing the grief of disregarding a local citizen against that of annoying a short-term visitor. Mark wondered what the conditions were at the local lock-up. Insect-ridden, no doubt.

The officer introduced himself directly to Hardcastle, "George Tuva. You are here on a nostalgia tour?"

The judge made a face at the term. "Not exactly." He hooked a thumb in Beckman's direction. "We were rescuing a kidnapped American citizen, David Beckman."

Tuva's eyebrows went up at this, taking in the battered man's appearance without a comment. "You wish to report a crime, sir?" he inquired in Beckman's direction.

"I wish to catch a plane out of here this afternoon," Beckman's face was set grimly.

Tuva shrugged. "Your choice, sir." Then he turned back to Hardcastle. "Mr. Rapoa states his storage area was broken into two nights ago, and one of his neighbors saw this man," he pointed to McCormick, "in the vicinity. I will need to search him."

"What's your probable cause, Officer Tuva?" Hardcastle asked mildly. "What was stolen?"

Tuva looked at Rapoa, who shook his head.

"Look, Tuva, I've seen your constitution. It's real familiar. Handiest thing in the world; one size fits all. It says no unreasonable searches and seizures, and you gotta have probable cause. I'll admit you got reasonable belief that a crime has been committed, but your experienced officer standard on this one stinks. Someone saw McCormick in the 'vicinity'? There's only one road between the place we're renting and every other damn thing on this island, and Rapoa's house in on that road. Besides, I'd say half the population here was within two miles of the crime scene that night." Hardcastle let out a sigh. "On top of which, you've got no nexus definition to speak of, you can't even tell me what you think you're going to find when you search him."

Tuva stood there, looking like a man who would prefer to be dealing with stolen pigs.

Hardcastle only paused for a moment before tempering his lecture with a smile. "On the other hand, I'd say the guys who kidnapped Mr. Beckman here might be a good place to start, unless you think you've got enough criminal elements on this island to support two simultaneous crime sprees.

"He'll be glad to describe them for you. And he can also tell you what was stolen here," Hardcastle had now fixed Beckman with a look, "and why."

Beckman's expression had become even grimmer. He shot a look back at Hardcastle and said, "Ju-udge."

"Don't worry, David," Hardcastle smiled reassuringly, "you won't miss your flight. You can draw him a map."

00000

Hija had departed with their thanks. The five men adjourned to Rapoa's porch. McCormick walked Jimmy into the house to find chairs for the judge and Beckman. Rapoa's nephew came out looking a good deal paler.

Tuva was studying the sketch Beckman had just finished, while the judge explained the man's original reluctance to report the find.

"How much?" Tuva asked.

"Ten boxes, twenty bars each," McCormick interjected smoothly. "About twenty-five pounds a box. Take a lot of water."

Tuva frowned down at the sketch dubiously. "You will need to stay, material witnesses."

"To what?" the judge asked impatiently. "The guys who committed that crime died forty years ago."

"The kidnapping?" Tuva asked hopefully.

"Okay, that's it," Hardcastle reached back for his wallet. "I was hoping not to have to do this but . . ." he pulled out a neatly folded sheet, flattening it against the upright post of the porch. "I don't suppose you know where Mr. Troutmann is?" he asked Tuva.

The officer looked puzzled. "He left this morning. Chartered a plane. Most unusual."

"Figures," Hardcastle glanced aside at McCormick, who was leaning over his shoulder, reading the letter with a look of amazement.

"How--?" Mark began to ask.

"The State Department owed us one for Rio Blanco. They thought they were getting off cheap. They didn't even ask for your resume," the judge replied to McCormick, as he handed the paper up to the officer. "Well, I guess that makes me the ranking American diplomat on the island for now."

Tuva looked down at the letter, on heavy stationary with official-looking seals and signatures. "You are the liaison for legal affairs?"

"Yes," Hardcastle smiled. "And this is my assistant, Mr. McCormick, paragraph three. And Mr. Beckman is the liaison for commercial affairs. That would be paragraph five." The judge patted the officer's arm gently as he retrieved the letter and refolded it. "We have diplomatic immunity."

Tuva nodded once, "Your country has become most _diplomatic_." He still had the map and didn't look too disappointed. He even offered to shake Hardcastle's hand before heading off towards his own jeep. Rapoa had turned his attention to his nephew, who was looking paler still.

That left the other three alone on the porch. McCormick offered the judge a hand up. "Why the hell didn't you use that letter in the first place? Probable cause," McCormick muttered.

"Aw, come on, it was more fun the other way. Besides. I didn't want you thinking you had a 'get out of jail free' card along on this trip. I've been trying to get you to have a sense of self-discipline." The judge stood up heavily, swayed a little, and leaned on the younger man. "Think we can hire Jimmy to drive us to the airport?"

00000

From his seat by the window, Beckman looked down wistfully at the swatch of green falling away behind the starboard wing.

"You're alive," McCormick said encouragingly. "There'll be other islands." He kept his voice low, though even the engine noise hadn't kept Hardcastle awake, once they'd arranged the two seats across the aisle into something resembling a cot.

Beckman smiled. "He did that on purpose, you know."

"Of course he did," McCormick replied. "Valuable life lessons, free of charge."

"So what'll happen to Troutmann?" Beckman pondered.

Mark shrugged. "He'll never work for the State Department again, after Hardcase gets through talking."

"And the guys he hired to work me over?"

"It's a small island; I think Tuva will find them. He reminds me of a cop I know back in LA."

"And Jimmy?"

"Jimmy and Rapoa deserve each other," McCormick concluded philosophically. He leaned over to check Hardcastle again.

"I feel bad about the pictures, though--the two rolls that were for my dad."

"I dunno," McCormick shrugged again, "I think when the dust settles, you should bring him here for a visit. Hell, if you could survive it with the crap beat out of you, and Hardcase with a fever of 104, he could probably handle it."

"Hey, maybe the four of us."

"A camping trip?" McCormick smiled.

"Yeah, and I won't even care if I come in second place."

McCormick shook his head; the smile was a little wistful. "You in second, me in third."

Beckman looked past him, across the aisle, and then back at McCormick again. "I don't think so, Mark."

But McCormick just shook his head again. "Hell, Dave, I'm not even running on the same track."

00000

They trudged on and off two more planes until, finally, the Honolulu to L.A. leg, on board an L-1011, took them home through a second sunrise. The joyful telephone reunion, from Guam, turned into the real thing in the lower level of terminal two at LAX, with David and his father leaning on each other for mutual support as the crowd of disembarkees swirled past them.

Mark saw the judge smile, though Hardcastle looked about ten steps away from collapse himself, even with McCormick's help coming off the plane.

"'With our shields, not on them,' this time around," Mark said. "Though you kinda look like you could use a stretcher," he prodded gently, as he steered for a cul-de-sac with an empty bench and waved the other two men over to it as well.

He left the three of them there, and hustled off to retrieve the luggage. By the time he returned, the three of them were lost in conversation--old friends, father and son. McCormick hesitated to intrude, but as he approached, Jake Beckman got up from where he'd been sitting and turned toward Mark with a warm smile and an outstretched hand, which quickly became an embrace.

"Thank you," Beckman said, as he clasped the younger man, and then, as he released him, "Milt says you did the heavy lifting on this one . . . I hope it wasn't as heavy as last time."

McCormick cast a questioning glance in the judge's direction, having absolutely no intention of letting on that he had any idea what Jake Beckman was talking about.

Hardcastle got a vague look about him and muttered, "Long story."

"And I'll tell you every bit of it, over dinner," Beckman announced expansively, "when Milt and Davey are back on their feet."

Mark smiled, and then departed again to find them transportation.

00000

Home again, though it seem somehow as if weeks ought to have passed, instead of days, and there was an odd shock of recognition when Mark saw the seven bags of composted manure, still stacked neatly exactly where he'd left them.

He got the judge and his luggage into the main house, pointing him in the direction of the upstairs and bed, not that he thought it would take. Then he carried his own bag back to the gatehouse and spent a few minutes unpacking, thinking maybe if he wasn't there, Hardcastle would be more likely to give in and take a nap.

He took the vest out of the bag, and sorted through the pockets where he'd stowed the more essential items that last morning. He knew the judge would question his sanity on one of the choices, as he took the set of lock picks and put them back in the drawer where they mostly stayed. Sentimental attachment, he supposed. He was pretty sure they'd been more useful than the bottle of aspirin he'd stowed in the other pocket. Those he took out and set aside.

Then reached deeper into that pocket and pulled out the pages he'd removed from the notebook before discarding it with the backpack. He carefully unfolded them—still readable despite the sweat stains. He flattened them and laid them in the bottom drawer of his desk. _The memories of others._

He looked out the window toward the house and saw some movement through the window to the den. Shaking his head in disbelief, he headed down the stairs again.

"I thought you were going to take a nap?" he asked, as he poked his head into the den. The judge was sitting at his desk, looking thoughtful. "Did you at least give Charlie a call?"

"Um, yeah. I think he had to look it up in a book, but he said it sounded like dengue."

"And you made an appointment, right?" McCormick knew he had to ask the specific questions. Assume nothing.

The judge nodded. "Tomorrow."

"And he told you to take it easy. Get a lot of rest."

Hardcastle looked up, with a twinge of aggravation. "He _always_ says that. Listen, McCormick, don't you have anything else to do?"

"Yeah," the younger man slid into the seat across from the desk, "I wanted to ask you when you figured out all that stuff about Troutmann and Jimmy."

The judge looked taken aback. He frowned for a moment and then answered slowly, "It must have been that night, in the cave. We didn't talk about it then?"

McCormick shook his head, suddenly not so sure he wanted to pursue this line of questioning.

Hardcastle was still frowning, "Just how out of it was I up there, anyway?"

"You explained about the gold." McCormick kept his face very bland, very non-committal.

"That's it?"

McCormick forced a smile. "Come on, Judge; on a _good_ day I can't figure out where you're coming from half the time."

Hardcastle pondered this for a moment and then said, "That bad, huh?"

"Pretty much incomprehensible," McCormick assured him.

"'Cause I thought maybe--"

"_Utterly _incomprehensible," McCormick pushed on glibly, "not that I'm not used to _that_."

"Okay, I get it." The judge sat back, looking at the younger man with a certain wary acceptance. "It's just that I thought maybe . . . I was thinking about something there; I might've said it out loud."

McCormick said nothing. He had his story and he was sticking to it. He waited out the uncomfortable silence.

"'Cause I was thinking with all that talk about the war—I never really said the most important thing—the thing Jake and I talked about when . . . right after he was wounded." The judge rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily; to Mark it looked like the fever was back. "I kept telling him he was _gonna_ make it, that he was gonna go home—have kids, a family. That was the one thing we held on to then, that maybe all that killing and being killed would serve a _purpose_ . . . that nobody would ever have to do it again."

_It's the fever talking_, Mark thought, but this time the fever made sense. He cleared his throat, a nervous hesitation, and then said, "He didn't do it to hurt you."

Hardcastle looked up at him sharply.

"I dunno," McCormick shrugged, "I didn't know him . . . but I know what it's like to be losing control . . . and, anyway, there's a hundred ways to really screw up your life; I know, I've tried most of 'em. All he did was try to do the right thing. You don't blame him for that, do you?"

"No," the judge said emphatically, "never."

"Good," McCormick said. "So now you'll take some aspirin and go lay down, right?"

Hardcastle frowned, and finally nodded, getting up slowly from behind the desk. Mark was already on his feet, offering him an arm to lean on which, most surprising of all, he did not refuse.


End file.
